The President's FY 2013 EERE budget will continue to support wind energy and other renewables.Credit: Vestas

President Obama on February 13 released his Fiscal Year 2013 DOE budget request to Congress, which proposes $27.2 billion. For the DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the President requested $2.27 billion, reaffirming the Administration’s commitment to an energy future that is cleaner, less expensive, and full of new jobs.

The blueprint includes investments in innovation, job-creating clean energy technologies, and national security. Specifically, the FY 2013 request promotes efforts to cut the cost of solar energy by 75% by the end of the decade and continue crosscutting research into clean energy technologies that can lead to a one-third reduction in U.S. dependence on oil by 2025.

The budget will support EERE goals, including improving building energy efficiency 50% by 2030, with 1 million homes weatherized by 2013; reducing energy consumption of manufactured goods across targeted product life-cycles by 50% or more; decreasing federal energy demand by 30% by 2015 (using a 2003 base) and federal greenhouse gas emissions by 28% by 2020 (using a 2008 base); improving cars to achieve fuel economy greater than 60 miles per gallon by 2025 and creating batteries by 2015 that cost half of what they do today; making solar energy competitive with other energy sources through the SunShot Initiative; and enabling wind energy to contribute 20% of U.S. electricity use by 2030.

Among the highlights: $60 million to perform critical research on energy storage systems and devise new approaches for battery storage; $350 million for the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to continue support for promising early-stage research projects that could deliver game-changing clean energy technologies; $120 million to support energy frontier research centers; and $140 million for five existing energy innovation hubs and to establish a new hub to focus on grid systems and the tie between transmission and distribution systems. The FY13 budget request also highlights steps taken by DOE to reduce costs. For example, the agency will reduce, consolidate, or move 40% of its websites to the Energy.gov platform to increase communication and transparency as well as streamline website infrastructure processes, which will save more than $10 million a year. See the DOE press release, the FY 2013 EERE budget request, and the proposed FY 2013 DOE budget.